Shrub Hill Station, Worcester (Worcester)

United Kingdom / England / Worcester
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The first station at Shrub Hill was opened in 1850 being jointly owned by the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton and Midland Railways; until 1852 it was used only as a terminus for the latter's services from Birmingham. The present station building was designed by Edward Wilson and built in 1865. It is a Georgian-style building mainly of engineering brick with stone facings. Originally there was also a train shed which was removed in the 1930s.

A survival at the station are the Western Region semaphore signals.


[edit] Services
Worcester Shrub Hill is served by Central Trains' services from Worcester to Birmingham, either directly to Birmingham New Street via Bromsgrove, or via Kidderminster to Birmingham Snow Hill. First Great Western operate several services a day to London Paddington via the Cotswold Line. They also run services to Bristol Temple Meads via Cheltenham and Gloucester. Both companies also run services via Worcester Foregate Street to Great Malvern and Hereford.

[edit] Waiting room
On platform 2b is the old ladies’ waiting room which extends onto the platform. It is a cast-iron structure cast at the Vulcan Iron Works at Worcester. This was a subsidiary of the MacKenzie and Holland signal manufacturing company about 200 yards from Worcester Shrub Hill station . The exterior is decorated with classical pilasters and covered with “majolica” ceramic tiles made by Maw and Company of Broseley.

Maw was originally a Worcester company founded in 1850 when they bought the old Chamberlain tile factory. However in 1852 they moved to Broseley to be nearer their source of clay. In the main they made encaustic tiles rather than the “majolica” ceramic tiles used to decorate the Shrub Hill waiting room.

Wojtczak writes that in 1873 there was Ladies’ Waiting Room Attendant called Mrs Dale who earned 10s and that this was the same rate of pay as a Mrs Spencer who was the Office Cleaner.

It is Grade II* listed and English Heritage placed it on the “Buildings At Risk Register” in 2003. The official records record that the waiting room was added c1880. In 2005 the register records “The cast iron frame is in need of structural repair. The front wall is leaning out and currently shored up. Preliminary investigative work has been carried out, but repair works have been delayed due partly to problem of locating specialist contractors." In April 2005 Network Rail applied for listed building planning consent to restore the waiting room to bring it back into use before the end of 2006. The application gave detail of the work to be carried out including restoration of the cast iron work and the sourcing and replacement of the missing ceramic tiles but as at May 2006 no work had commenced and English Heritage reported that the building will be on the 2006 “Buildings At Risk Register” to be published in June 2006.
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Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester_Shrub_Hill
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Coordinates:   52°11'40"N   2°12'33"W

Comments

  • Shrub Hill station is not in a very convenient location, there's not even a pub nearby!! If you are going to Worcester by train then Foregate St is the better station.
  • Foregate Street is more centrally located. But who anyway leaves a train station with the hope of getting a beer? Most people will walk to the town centre, hire a taxi or drive their car out of the car park. Apart from being at risk of falling apart, the station is also at risk from closing. There are plans to build a station called 'Worcester Parkway' which would be served by Cross Country services and trains from London to Hereford. However, it would prove a lot easier just to redirect trains on the Cross Country route back to Shrub Hill. Considering how prominent Worcester is on the M5 route, it would make a lot of sense to let CrossCountry trains stop at it! In addition, it would be cheaper to renovate Shrub Hill than to close it and build a new one.
This article was last modified 17 years ago